Mindscape 106 | Stuart Bartlett on What "Life" Means

[@phmfthacim]

lol at the life insurance ad

[@shawnroberts8069]

I hope you will set up cameras in the future! Love the subjects!

[@rajens1]

I picture Sean trying not to crack up every time dude says 'Lyfe'

[@abouttime5630]

For some reason every time he says it I picture Jake Paralta from Brooklyn nine nine saying it

[@markfidelix]

28:25 When we talk about genes being passed on we're talking about the information, not the molecule itself. The gene molecules present in one individual are not passed on, even if that individual reproduces directly. What is passed on, though, is the information. The main thing pointed by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene is that evolution can and do make organisms with altruistic behavior, but the genes themselves are still selfish because they are just benefiting other copies of each other. In ant colonies, for exemple, there is a very high genetic similarity among all individuals. The males, for exemple, have no father and are born with only (half of) its mother gene aleles through unfertilized eggs. For an ant, sacrificing for its colony is genetically equivalent to saving its on life, and its on genes. Just think about it, all your cells have 2 copies of all of its genes, but only the copies on the sperm cells are passed on to your children. Why do all your cells cooperate to make you, if they dont pass on their own genes, but only the sperm cells genes? Because there is a very high probability that the same genes, cointaining the same information, are present in the sperm cells. As Haldane supposedly said "i would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins".

[@zombierobotsheep]

Wait til Deepak Chopra gets a hold of this...

[@emilylowrance7930]

it's my 39th birthday 7/20 !! Deep topic for today !!

[@AdamAlbilya1]

The meaning of life is sex drugs and the mindscape podcast.

[@capoeirastronaut]

The point about not Darwinian evolution alone, puts me in mind of David Deitsch's The Fabric of reality, where he consider Darwinian evolution and computational theory, as both being pillars of our picture of reality. We know we create mental models of our world. It's a picture where evolution doesn't just randomly try mutations, but increasingly to take 'educated guesses', for instance a battery of evolved tools for crisis'. We could situate ourselves in a continuum, with 'conscious' intelligence part of a bigger picture, on a spectrum. This might then help with understanding group selection (or multilevel selection).

[@stu40971]

This is a great point, yes. It relates again to the work of Richard Watson in the sense that evolving systems as a whole seem to be able to learn about the evolutionary process itself and take advantage of structural features of the process or search spaces they are exploring.

[@chrisofnottingham]

We classify something as "life" based on an evolved intuitive reaction. This intuitive reaction historically helped us identify both food and threats. But this reaction did not evolve to deal with viruses or non DNA life. My point being that it is pointless to reverse engineer a definition of life in much the same way as it is pointless to reverse engineer the definition of "scarey". So yes, we either stick with the word life and everyone is allowed to use their own perceived boundaries, or, we find new words to describe non traditional complex structures that exhibit the properties we are interested in - and don't worry about defining if it is life or not.

[@naimulhaq9626]

Life not only evolve in Darwinian sense, but physical universe also have natural selection, shown by Lee Smolin, so matter have self-organizing property. Implying man and nature are entangled, co-related. Quantum mechanics leads us to understand life, consciousness and even soul, the life force.

[@AnswersInAtheism]

@Sean Carroll were there some papers that should be linked?

[@judgeomega]

if a category doesnt provide any useful information or distinction, it is not worth having a word for.

[@tleevz1]

Great guest, made for an interesting episode. Getting there...hey Bernardo Castrup would be a great guest. Thank you.

[@iruleandyoudont9]

Bernardo Castrup is a clown

[@tleevz1]

@@iruleandyoudont9 Cool. Thank you for that well reasoned opinion.

[@iruleandyoudont9]

@@tleevz1 the reason is his arguments are vapid nonsense

[@tleevz1]

@@iruleandyoudont9 until you address and falsify his points I'm not convinced.

[@iruleandyoudont9]

@@tleevz1 leprechauns exist. until you falsify it I'm not convinced. great epistemology 👍

[@simonbean3774]

One thing's sure - the more you talk about it, the less you live it.

[@larscwallin]

Regarding learning and plants, have a listen to this BBC documentary on the topic: pca.st/episode/31df321d-01e8-414e-9a1e-9e1b0768b72a It includes a very cool Pavlovian experiment by Monica Guilliano using pea seedlings. This is fascinating stuff not only when thinking about life, but also consciousness I think 🙂

[@isaacanderson8231]

Nice some great content

[@obsoleteboomermobileobsole2043]

The idea that group selection doesnt exist is completely moronic. Its like saying we dont need the laws of chemistry because we have the laws of Quantum mechanics, which is all we need. The point is that group selection emerges out of the substrate of individual selection in the same way chemistry emerges out of quantum mechanics

[@RodrigoOshiro]

one of those easy to understand but hard to explain concepts.

[@pansepot1490]

I don’t think the guest really knows what Darwinian evolution is. He seems to have learned a narrow definition and hence his problems with it.

[@Webfra14]

Yeah... To say that the worker ants' genes don't get anything out of the cooperation...

[@psycho2soundz]

Viruses likely adds some speciation variables in host organisms ...

[@papsaebus8606]

So basically Loife is Life synthesized in British lab

[@alexanderk1089]

An ad in the middle of the talk? Really?

[@sergeynovikov9424]

the Darwinian evolution is not about survival of the strongest, the smartest and the best adapted - but it's all about processing information gathering from the environment (in the form of the observable universe). due to evolution the Earth's biosphere (which is a single multilevel hierarchical living system located in the center of the observable universe) is irreversibly developing in the direction of growing ability of gathering, storing and processing information -- with the growth of computational/quantum complexity (Susskind) or informational (Kolmogorov's) complexity related with this system. life is fundamental for the existence of the universe, as we know it and life by itself is fundamentally quantum phenomenon.

[@vincebuckley1499]

The center of the observable universe...... lol! It's technically true AND dumb, you win the interweb for today good sir!

[@sergeynovikov9424]

@@vincebuckley1499 "It's technically true AND dumb" it looks dumb only for those who has a dump in his head which prevents to see the real things, my friend))

[@sergeynovikov9424]

the 'Last Universal Common Ancestor' (LUCA) started as a set of complex geochemical reactions which were taking place on the early Earth -- it the early whole Earth's biosphere is the LUCA.

[@Valdagast]

What is lyfe? Baby don't hurt me.

[@Confuseddave]

I have to say, he lost a great deal of credibility to me with the ants example. It's true that this is a conundrum that science has to answer, but it's the kind of conundrum we pose to undergraduates in class before immediately explaining what the obvious and well substantiated answer is. Again, it doesn't mean that there's *not* something else going on, but if an undergraduate couldn't explain to me how natural selection could account for that phenomenon, I would conclude that they had not been paying attention in class. I don't know whether this seems so bleedingly obvious to me because I'm a developmental biologist; the idea that you can have evolutionarily selected features that belong to cell lineages that don't contribute to the next generation. If your germline cells can carry the information to make lungs and heart and brain cells without directly using that information in the time between fertilisation and gametogenesis, obviously a Queen ant can pass on information to make an infertile drone ant without literally having been a drone ant while they were alive. Occam's razor strongly favours that explanation, so you're going to have to give me a much more clear and coherent reason why it wouldn't be the case. This guy is just as frustrating to listen to as David Chalmers - "I have a vague unsubstantiated sense that something more must be going on, so I'm going to build an entire academic career on muddying the water for no reason"

[@rumraket38]

I have no formal education in evolutionary biology, but I understand the solution perfectly well. Everyone can understand it.

[@stu40971]

I guess I should clarify that the challenge is not coming up with explanations as to why the organisation of extant life is the way it is. It's fine to point to aspects of life in its broader context and describe the features and interactions that give it stability (such as the kin selection effects that you describe). In a similar vein, we could point to the eukaryotic cell and make statements such as "the mitochondria's function is to perform chemical conversions that result in ATP production", which is adequate for describing the stability of mitochondria in their context, but does not immediately explain the endosymbiosis or other event that led to the integration of the mitochondria's first ancestor into the first eukaryote ancestor. This is especially poignant given the significant role of the amplification of chance events in life's history. Before the mitochondrial ancestor encountered its host, it would have been difficult to predict that millions of years later they would have coevolved into a new, more complex cell structure. In the case of eusociality, I view it alongside the other major evolutionary transitions, and in the spirit of Maynard-Smith and Szathmary, it seems to correspond to a modification of the units of selection. So while kin selection or similar effects offer a potential explanation for life as we view it today, I'm not sure it automatically explains the transition by which groups of previously selfish individuals start cooperating and eventually undergo a division of labour into different functional groups (as the insects and multi-cellular organisms did). On the wider place of Darwinian evolution and selection at the gene level, I think it's fairly obvious from modern research on epigenetics, horizontal gene transfer, molecular-scale learning processes, etc., that there are many learning processes occurring in the biosphere as well as evolution by natural selection, and that our models of evolution are still in need of modification or augmentation. See, e.g., www.google.com/books/edition/Probably_Approximately_Correct/LBW_dOJ3hoMC?hl=en&gbpv=0 www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00902/full www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519305003851?casa_token=Pc08zUYhaVkAAAAA:I4I_Ksd3khGDRqpIur66hWjvTQpsZOaYNc8MBmwozrSGnNRIoHn3yhH-l-iCpOXy9t9Xae8Q4Mc link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.98.012408 aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3643064?casa_token=uySmObeJI9cAAAAA%3AGJSbhhx-QdjIBgDTfOrnF2YFWLDDB2Kpbd9NZRXfWq5Tzz8rwy_Oz0--vYa2LE-6J9XtUhlO_9Wo My hope is that a broader understanding of all these learning processes, combined with all the new knowledge from the development of artificial intelligence, will eventually culminate in a more general framework that explains the major transitions, open-endedness, Darwinian evolution, and all major facets of biological learning in a compact theory.

[@ggoedert]

I think the most minimum definition of life, is a mechanism that besides being able to perform some specialized function also has some feature that tries to defend and prolong the ability to execute that function against other outside influences, it dies whenever it loses either of those two capabilities (the ability to do a specialized function or protecting that ability).

[@dmitryshusterman9494]

A really bad definition. So, a cloud is alive by this definition. It has a purpose of shading ground below, and it prolongs itself by thermal convection. Actually, by this definition anything is alive, for definition of purpose is not defined. Also, which mechanism is special and which is not.

[@ggoedert]

@@dmitryshusterman9494 a cloud is just a natural feature consequence of the environment... It does not defend itself in any way protecting its ability to do whatever it does...

[@roman9509]

Wow every second point this smart guy is making is either not explained enough or could be argued. But even if "believes" that evolution by natural selection is not good enough, all the power to him to find other forces (mind you there are plenty, e.g. sexual selection)

[@cserpakbalazs6342]

I’m only at 28 minutes now but come on, as others have already pointed out social insect evolution is totally explainable with darwinian evolution, and it has been explained thousands of times as far as I know. Am I missing something here? Also, you don’t have to go that far to find group selection. Bodies are made of cells. If one of them goes nuts and starts behaving selfishly, you have a nice tumor and the group (of cells, the body) is out of competition. Again am I missing something?

[@Czeckie]

how can something be explained thousands of times? There are so many hypothesis about evolution of eusociality because these efforts never offer a completely satisfying explanation. Some non-darwinian keywords to google are group selection or multilevel selection. This is certainly not a done deal and it's hard to do.

[@cserpakbalazs6342]

@@Czeckie Hey, thanks for your answer. I think this is fundamentally a definition question: what is Darwinian evolution? To me it's always been something like this: there are reproducing entities that pass on information to the next generation of entities. This information influences the reproductive success of these entities and there is some variation in it. If you have these circumstances and there are constraints in the environment, you get evolution. Note, that the entities can be groups instead of individuals and the information can be other then genetic information. To be fair though, the first few search results for Darwinian evolution give a way narrower definition. They focus on the reproductive success of individuals. In that sense, social insects are out, yes. But I don't really like that definition, because, it's not easy to pin down what counts as an individual. Again, the body of most animals consists of individual cells, that act together as group. That would mean, that basically no animal can be the subject of Darwinian evolution. At least that's how I see it now. But I'd be happy to change my mind. Please reply if you have thoughts, it's good to bounce your ideas off others. :)

[@ovdtogt1]

Which self-sustaining chemical reaction could be the first steps of Life?

[@PrashantMaurice]

Combustion

[@stu40971]

One prominent hypothesis in the field is a version of the acetyl-CoA pathway. See e.g., www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1125-6 Another possibility that is being explored is the reverse tricarboxylic acid cycle, see e.g., www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0311-7

[@FR-yr2lo]

Group selection seems to be evidence. How comes it's still negated by some great minds?!

[@aresmars2003]

6:58 "I'm unsure whether just Darwinian evolution is sufficient to explain the diversity of life on earth." YES! That's my starting point. No way to prove natural selection is sufficient. The first alternative is Lamarckian evolution - "experiences" changing the expression of genes, like epigenetics for instance allows it to potentially pass to offspring. But there could be other explanations as well - like Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance that sees some external storage for experience outside individual life, or like Jung's collective unconscious, like archetypes, that all beings may have subjective access to, if their consciousness is sufficient. Of course human culture adds a new level to cultural evolution without genetic changes as well.

[@aresmars2003]

In a time of covid-19, we are reminded that viruses may not be considered "alive" since they require other life forms to replicate, so perhaps they also are vital to the macroevolutionary process, if only through pandemic times which forces a species into a smaller population, which selects which individuals pass on their genes into the future.

[@stu40971]

Exactly, there are many layers of information processing being uncovered by biologists, neuroscientists, sociologists, etc. A fantastic overview can be found here: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00902/full Darwinism is one among many such processes. Maybe Darwinian processes discovered and honed these learning mechanisms or maybe it was the other way round, or some messy combination. We will find out more as researchers from all the relevant fields work together.

[@stu40971]

@@aresmars2003 Indeed there is a body of work arguing that the battle between viruses and their hosts was the driving force for many of the major innovations and transitions in the course of life's evolution: scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=patrick+forterre

[@protoword10]

When I was young, I established definition of life to myself like: SELF SUSTAINED MULTIPLIER OF YOURSELF.

[@roman9509]

How about a crystal?

[@protoword10]

Ro Man Does crystal multiply itself in the same form? It just growing up in different forms (shapes)! Do you know any life forms, any cell, or so that develop in different form than itself!?

[@seth4766]

[@MohaymenPK]

7:36 53:43

[@veleronHL]

Yet another episode where Sean seems to be trying his best to get things going yet the guest seems to be rather slow in presenting the arguments. Such a waste.

[@pansepot1490]

Yup. Sounds like the guest doesn’t have very clear ideas. Or he cannot explain them clearly.

[@leonenriquez5031]

OMG why oh why so freaking obsessed with things being reduced to a minimal reductionist level!!! Reductionism is an incomplete perspective, you reductionist theoretical physicists will be going in circles until you figure out emergent causal relations.

[@leonenriquez5031]

You can see Sean's anti-semiotic nominalistic perspective on Science in full display here: the fact that he keeps saying "...no one is going to say they are alive..." and "...they share some properties (with life) but are clearly not..." the only thing clear here is how Sean thinks recognizing or calling something "alive" is what genuinely makes it alive, and not how it REALLY behaves.